Morning briefing Thursday 27th November

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. This is the Times Morning Briefing for Thursday the 27th of November. Industry experts say the policy measures announced in the budget will have no material impact on economic growth.

0:45The Office for Budget Responsibility, the official forecaster, said that average weekly earnings after adjusting for inflation will still be lower by the end of the decade than they were at the start of the financial crisis in 2008. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has repeatedly said that economic growth is her number one priority. Chris Southworth is the Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, UK. Speaking to Times Radio, he said the budget speech failed to address the key issue of trade. We've been flatlining for 10 years. We've got zero growth on goods trade, all those things that are crossing the border in and out.

1:23We've had no growth whatsoever. 13 ,000 small companies have stopped trading with the EU. We've got a£22 billion trade finance gap. You know, we can't fund everything we want if we do not trade. A Labour backbencher says the Chancellor's decision to lift the two-child benefit cap is a vindication for the left of the party. Almost 16 months after suspending seven of its own MPs for voting to abolish the cap, the Labour government has done precisely that. One of them is Richard Bergen, the Labour MP for Leeds East. Speaking to Times Radio, he said he hopes lessons have been learned. This will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.

2:04So I'm delighted at that, but I would gently say that the government should learn the lesson from that, which is if they listen to the backbenchers who are listening to their constituents, then the government can avoid having to make changes in position and can avoid errors and can get things right first time around. A suspect is in custody in Washington, D.C. after the shooting of two military personnel near the White House. According to President Trump, the Department for Homeland Security is said to be confident that the perpetrator is a foreigner who entered the US from Afghanistan four years ago.

2:37Trump, who was in Florida at the time, also described the attacker as an animal who would pay the steepest possible price. This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. As we are filled with anguish and grief for those who were shot, we're also filled with righteous anger and ferocious resolve. And at least 44 people are now known to have been killed in a fire that's engulfed seven residential tower blocks in Hong Kong. Three men, who are believed to be executives of the contractors carrying out a renovation project, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

3:20The Times-Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry says the fire bears a strong resemblance to the tragedy at Grenfell in 2017. The scaffolding surrounding them was made of bamboo because it's cheap, it's very flexible, it's strong, it's abundant, but obviously it's also flammable. But we're also hearing about these styrofoam panels, these kind of blocks which are put in the windows. I suspect that people in Hong Kong aren't going to use bamboo scaffolding anymore after this. You can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC.

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